Read Online The Door in the Moon by Catherine Fisher - Free Book Online Page A

white lab coat, the pockets stuffed with papers and wires. In his arms he carried a tall pile of books with the marmoset balanced precariously on top of it. Seeing Venn, his gaze widened with alarm.
    â€œBe careful, Excellency.”
    Venn was still, as if by his own despair he could conjure something, anything, from those black, heartless depths. When at last he did step back, his face was gaunt.
    He turned to Gideon.
    â€œSummer is holding Wharton. As a hostage for you.”
    Gideon folded his arms over his patchwork coat. The news was a shock, but he managed to keep his voice steady. “Then I truly feel sorry for him.”
    â€œThe fool thought he had some sort of choice, thought he was being heroic, giving himself up.” Venn’s ice-blue gaze held the changeling in contempt. “I won’t force you to go back. But don’t you think you should . . .”
    Gideon shrugged, calm. “No, I don’t. Summer doesn’t keep bargains. The Shee don’t understand fair or unfair. If I went back, she’d still torment him and probably imprison both of us in some dungeon in the Summerland. It’s a pity about him. But I’m more use to you here.”
    Venn nodded. “A cool judgment. You’ve grown very like them.”
    Annoyed, Gideon paled. “I don’t think so.”
    â€œNo? If Jake was in your place, he wouldn’t hesitate. He’d be furious, reckless. He’d be storming into the Wood to save Wharton right now.”
    That was true; Gideon knew it. He felt the familiar stirring of self-hatred, of shame, but Venn turned away abruptly, and said nothing more.
    Gideon breathed out. Then, seeing Piers’s bright eye on him, he growled, “Keep your opinions to yourself, little man. You wouldn’t go.”
    â€œWell no,” Piers said, “I don’t suppose I would. But then I’m not a mortal. I don’t have to be brave and stupid.”
    He turned to Venn. “Excellency, this is what you asked for. Like I told you, I found it under a floorboard in Sarah’s room—she had a stash of stuff there. She must have had the hiding place in the future time, when the house is ruined. If that makes sense.” He fished a small gray notebook out of the pile and laid it on the workbench. “And this.”
    A black pen, with a capital
Z
on its cap.
    Venn picked the notebook up and opened it.
    He flicked through the messages she had written, and Janus’s mocking answers. One of them caught his eye.
    DO I HAVE TO SEND MORE OF MY TIME WOLVES AFTER YOU, DEAR SARAH? DO I HAVE TO HUNT YOU DOWN TO STOP YOU DESTROYING THE MIRROR?
    NO, I DON’T. I CAN SIT BACK AND SMILE. VENN WILL DO MY JOB FOR ME. VENN WILL PROTECT THE CHRONOPTIKA BECAUSE VENN IS THE MOST SELFISH OF BEINGS. HE WOULD SACRIFICE THE FUTURE OF THE WORLD FOR HIS OWN HAPPINESS. AND SO HE WILL ENABLE MY TYRANNY TO BEGIN.
    It stabbed him like a thin blade of fear in his heart, a sliver of ice. It was clever and mocking and it would have hurt her all the more because she would have thought it was true.
    Bitter, he looked up. “Why did she communicate with him like this?”
    â€œ
Know your enemy,
they say.” Maskelyne came and picked up the pen. “This is interesting. The notebook is just ordinary paper. The pen, however, is the device that coveys the message. It is some creation of the future. She must have brought it with her.”
    Venn took it from him and looked at the letter
Z
on the cap. Then he said, “It makes me think. What if it was Janus who took Jake? What if Sarah guessed that when she went after them? Who else can send Replicants across time?”
    â€œWe won’t know, unless—”
    â€œUnless we ask him.”
    Venn took the black pen and strode to the mirror. In huge, angry letters he scrawled a message over the black glass.
    WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH JAKE
?

    Through the hothouse window Sarah saw a paradise such as